


Moving

by mneiai



Series: 5trueloves of Richard Zeeman [2]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter
Genre: Multi, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mneiai/pseuds/mneiai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard always wanted impossible things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving

The first time he saw her was across a Lupanar--she was the most beautiful female he had ever seen, with a strength that rivaled Raina's, but without the flint of a sadist behind her eyes. For the rest of the night he couldn't pull his attention away from her, slowly working towards her.

He was just about to make his move the next morning as everyone shuffled to their cars, but Raina caught his arm, that gleam in her eyes, and leaned in close to whisper in his ear with faked comfort, "She'd do _me_ before she so much as looked at _you_."

~~~

The first time she saw him was at a meeting. He was sitting with the alphas, discussing something with Marcus in hushed, urgent tones just soft enough that none of the other lycanthropes could make out the actual words. Marcus' anger flashed across his face and a growl rumbled in his throat just as the other wolf's shields faltered, power searing the skin of everyone in the room. She had never felt power like that.

She leaned to the side, ready to whisper excitedly that he, this wolf, was the one who could challenge Marcus and _win_. He could change things, with her careful guidance he could make the pack a better place.

Her friend shook her head and both their eyes went back to the front of the room: Marcus and the other man had settled whatever differences they had had and were talking lightly...with Raina and Gabriel, as if they were all the best of friends.

"Fuck."

~~~

"You...what?"

Sylvie sighed. "I want you to challenge Marcus. You're powerful enough to beat him, you don't agree with what he's doing, you have to see this is the way to fix things."

"By _killing_ Marcus?" Richard gave her an incredulous look that could almost be mistaken for naïve.

"_Yes_."

There was a pause and Sylvie held her breath, sure this was it, what she wanted. There would finally be a new Ulfric, one with a _soul_.

"No." Richard's glare actually stung. "I'm part of the 'in crowd,' remember? None of the other 'revolutionaries' will even talk to me."

Angry, she agreed, "You reek of Gabriel."

"Fuck you."

~~~

Raina scared him, Marcus disgusted him, Sylvie enraged him, and Richard was always left with Gabriel. Who thought it was all hilarious--Richard falling for a lesbian who wanted him to kill a person he loved. Of course, it was helped along by the fact that Gabriel wanted him to kill Marcus, too.

"You'd make a kick ass Ulfric," he commented over dinner one night, Richard staring down into his pasta and refusing to respond. "Even Raina would support you."

"If I made her lupa," he mumbled.

Gabriel set his fork down with a bit too much clatter for it to be a casual gesture. "Who else would be?"

Richard shifted, knowing his answer wasn't as all what Gabriel would want to hear. For as much as Gabriel hated Marcus, and loved Richard (in his own, admittedly fucked up way), he also liked the status quo--adding another true contender for Richard's heart, at this point, wasn't what he wanted.

"Your _Sylvie_," Gabriel's voice was all bite, all malice and anger, mixed in, as it always was, with sex, "would be far more likely to make you _her_ lupa."

~~~

"So you're pissed because I'm ruining your sex life?"

Richard flinched. "That's not what this is about. I didn't even _say_ Gabriel was withholding sex until I 'come to my senses!'" He froze, realizing he had confirmed it, then brushed it aside. "This entire thing is messing up all of the friendships and relationships I've come to value over _years_ of being with these people. You can't just waltz in here like you know what's _better_ for the pack. What if this is the best we're going to get?"

Sylvie opened her mouth to interrupt, but stopped, glancing at the other people present in the room and seeing that they wanted to know what Richard's excuse was.

"Sure, Raina's a sadistic bitch who uses us for her own twisted pleasure, most of the time involving Gabriel who _shouldn't even have status in the pack_. And Marcus just lets it all happen and doesn't do a thing to help out the weaker members who get sucked into Raina's schemes...but it's still 'the devil we know.' And despite everything, they still protect us from anyone outside of the pack who could hurt us, they deal with all of the messed up preternatural politics that the rest of us don't want to be bothered with learning...."

Richard rolled his eyes at the skeptical faces in front of him, shook his head, and turned to leave. "You all think I would be such a great Ulfric, but wouldn't _I_ be far more influenced by Gabriel than Marcus, or even Raina, is?" He left them to chew on that thought, wondering if it had even occurred to them that in any relationship with Gabriel, the other person never had control.

~~~

His infatuation with Sylvie never really ended. Not even when he met another spitfire woman who never backed down from a fight when she thought she was right. Not when he finally had to agree that Raina had gone to far, that Marcus was becoming too lax (that Anita was likely to take matters into her own hands and damn the consequences). And she was still there for him, despite everything, when his life fell to pieces and his heart was torn to shreds.

She was better than a lover, a girlfriend, a wife...because Richard could never think of sex as innocent again and what Sylvie and he had went beyond that.


End file.
